(17:25) Alexander thought prestige abroad more easy to acquire than prestige at home, and believed that his greatness could be destroyed by his own followers. (26) Fearing such a disaster, he thus addressed his friends: "Keep me safe from internal treachery and domestic plots, and I will front without fear the dangers of battle and of war. (27) Philip was more secure in the battle array than in the theatre: he often escaped from the hands of the enemy, he could not escape from his own subjects. (28) If you think over the deaths of kings, you will count up more who have died by the assassin than by the open foe." (Q. Curtius, chap. vi.) (17:29) For the sake of making themselves secure, kings who seized the throne in ancient times used to try to spread the idea that they were descended from the immortal gods, thinking that if their subjects and the rest of mankind did not look on them as equals, but believed them to be gods, they would willingly submit to their rule, and obey their commands. (30) Thus Augustus persuaded the Romans that he was descended from Æneas, who was the son of Venus, and numbered among the gods. (31) "He wished himself to be worshipped in temples, like the gods, with flamens and priests." (Tacitus, Ann. i. 10.) (17:32) Alexander wished to be saluted as the son of Jupiter, not from motives of pride but of policy, as he showed by his answer to the invective of Hermolaus: "It is almost laughable," said he, "that Hermolaus asked me to contradict Jupiter, by whose oracle I am recognized. (33) Am I responsible for the answers of the gods? (34) It offered me the name of son; acquiescence was by no means foreign to my present designs. (35) Would that the Indians also would believe me to be a god! (36) Wars are carried through by prestige, falsehoods that are believed often gain the force of truth." (Curtius, viii,. Para. 8.) (37) In these few words he cleverly contrives to palm off a fiction on the ignorant, and at the same time hints at the motive for the deception.